El Cajon 
With only Mayor Mark Lewis reserving public comment, the five members of the City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to condemn the actions of former Councilwoman Jillian Hanson-Cox.

Hanson-Cox, who embezzled money from her employers at Century Design Inc. for at least five of the 19 years she worked there, resigned from the council in March just as the FBI raided her home and Century Design.

She was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison after admitting she stole $3.5 million from the Kearny Mesa-based business.

Councilman Gary Kendrick, who put the condemnation resolution on the agenda, called Hanson-Cox’s actions “the greatest scandal we’ve ever had regarding an El Cajon City Council member.”

Before Hanson-Cox was sentenced, Councilman Bob McClellan and Lewis had sent letters of support to a U.S. District Court vouching for her character and generosity. McClellan said after the meeting, “I guess I need to send another letter now.”

Lewis said afterward that because sentencing has occurred, he would not be writing another letter.

“I don’t see what the purpose would be, the judge already made his decision,” Lewis said, adding he wouldn’t have sent a letter “if we had known the whole story.”

Kendrick offered a formal apology to the company’s former owner, Bob Basso, and his son, Barry Basso, both of whom were allowed to speak during the public-comment portion of the council meeting. The Bassos were cut off at the last council meeting while trying to speak publicly.

Both Bassos took the council, city staff and others to task Tuesday for publicly supporting Hanson-Cox.

Barry Basso decried city public information officer Monica Zech’s “two-day extravaganza (with Hanson-Cox using) $9,400 of stolen money.” Zech has said she went on the trip to a Beverly Hills hotel when Hanson-Cox asked her to baby-sit for her niece. Zech said she did not know the trip was funded with stolen money.

The Bassos also criticized a trip that retired Police Chief Clifford Diamond and his wife took to Hawaii that Hanson-Cox paid for. Barry Basso also asked Lewis to resign as mayor.

Bob Basso said Hanson-Cox was “not stealing from a large company,” but a family-owned small manufacturing business he founded alone in 1957. The Basso family sold the company in 2011.

He said when he sold the company, he “happily gave Jillian Cox and her husband a bonus of $150,000 … while at the same time she was embezzling.”